Council opposes war with Iran

by V Smoothe | November 7, 2007 | 0 comments

So at the Council meeting last night, the resolution to oppose war with Iran passed unanimously. I have to say I’m a little bummed. I mean, I knew it was on the consent calendar and everything, but I was really, really hoping that at least one Councilmember would have been willing to acknowledge what an utterly pointless waste of time and energy this resolution is and at least abstain. No such luck.

According to some woman from some random DC think tank, the move is hugely important:

Dolan also said there were 300 similar resolutions against the Iraq war before the 2003 invasion and 400 against the Patriot Act. She added that the total sum of the populations of cities and states with resolutions demanding troop withdrawal from the Iraq war represents half of the American public.

“If the past is any indication of the future, as it usually is, this is something that will catch on like wildfire,” Dolan said about the newest batch of resolutions opposing war with Iran.

If I were her, I don’t think I’d be quite so eager to advertise what a total waste of time this little show is. If the past is any indication of the future, the logical conclusion of her statement is that the Bush administration will do whatever the hell they want no matter how many resolutions we pass. And while that probably is true, I’m not quite sure how highlighting that fact is helping Dolan’s case.

But who cares what this DC woman thinks, anyway? If we want to listen to ludicrous defenses of the action, we can look to downtown’s own Councilmember, Nancy Nadel:

Nadel said her office did receive one phone call from someone questioning why the council didn’t spend its time filling potholes, rather than passing political resolutions.

Her response?

“All I can say is if we had the billions of dollars that are being wasted on the war, we could fill an awful lot of potholes,” she said.

How does that answer the constituent’s complaint? This is such a bullshit argument. There is not a choice before us or anyone else between the Federal government spending money on the war and spending it on Oakland’s potholes. Those “billions of dollars” (borrowed dollars) were not filling our potholes before the war, and they won’t do so when it’s over. The Council needs to stop blaming other people for their failures and start working to fix the very real problems here in Oakland with real resources we have available to us, not imaginary ones.

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